MEST2: BBFC Institution research

What is BBFC?
The BBFC (The British Board of Film Classification) is an independent non-governmental organisation which classifies cinema films. It's responsible for the national classification and censorship of films.

How are films rated?
Examiners normally view the film submissions by themselves, however, if the film is foreign a translator would be needed. The examiners make notes about what the film contains, e.g, sexual content, violence, bad language. Furthermore, distributors can make a request about the age rate of the film which would be taken into consideration by the examiners. 

What issues are there?
When examiners are categorising a film they consider:

• Conflict with the law
• If it would cause any harm to the viewers
• not suitable to appear to a wider audience 
• acceptably portraying a dominant issue 
• unsettling tone, which may be unsettling to it's audience

Other issue's that have to be taken into consideration are:

• Violence 
• Sex
• Sexual Violence
• Drugs 
• Horror 
• Imitable Behaviour
• Discrimination 
• Language 

Controversial decisions - 'The Dark Knight'

There was a lot of media coverage over this film as it was rated a 12A. However, many people thought the amount of violence in this film was too strong for it to be under the rating of a 12A. Parents felt like the tone of the film unsuitable for their kids to watch as there were weapons such as knifes being used throughout the film. 

15 Rated Films:

• strong violence 
• frequent use of strong language 
• portrayals of sexual activity 
• verbal references to sex
• sexual nudity
• brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• discriminatory language or behaviour
• drug taking

Adulthood - classification:

This film was rated a 15 as it contained very strong language, violence and sexual references. Due to this being contained in this film its age rating was a 15.